Almost Dead Part 15

'It's not easy,' I said.

'I didn't say it was easy.' He looked up with irritation. 'We will keep thinking. I'm happy to hear more ideas. Anyway, you're to start working on the explosives. Start gathering quant.i.ties. Slowly.'

'How are the muscles responding, Doctor?'

'Well, you know. He's not moving them like us. You should be giving him more ma.s.sages every day, here, and here, like this...'

'I knowI've already increased the number of deep ma.s.sages. He gets more than anyone, longer than anyone...'

'And always check underneath, because that's how he usually lies...'

'I do. I'm determined that he won't get any pressure sores. I've been working on reducing these inflammations, too. Here, help me turn him over, Doctor...'

'I'm impressed, Svetlana...'

'Careful with the tubes now...One for air, and another for urine. He's lucky we treat him so well. n.o.body else gets such personal treatment, Doctor.'

Outside, the armoured personnel carriers rolled by, leading columns of soldiers like ducks leading trails of their young. We'd grown used to them and, as in the zoo when the animals get to know each other, we feared them less. Kids were already throwing stones at them, almost affectionately, as it were.

I poured c.o.ke into a couple of tall Coca-Cola gla.s.ses I got free with a box of six bottles and Bilahl lifted his gla.s.s dubiously, the drink sizzling with a thousand tiny explosions beneath his lips. I didn't like his att.i.tude. I didn't know what they'd told him in Gaza but I'd seen the money they'd given him. Two thousand in cash. Two grand, and even a gla.s.s of c.o.ke was somehow impure and decadent. We should have enjoyed it more, should have realised that the tap could have been turned off any time. But it's easy to say that in hindsight.

I drank c.o.ke and ate sunflower seeds and watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and and The Weakest Link The Weakest Link and and The Mission The Mission. A contestant on The Mission The Mission managed to reach the Golden Question, giving himself a chance to double the five million Lebanese lira he'd already won. managed to reach the Golden Question, giving himself a chance to double the five million Lebanese lira he'd already won.

The Golden Question was this: 'Last week members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qa.s.sam Brigades carried out an attack on a bus on the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem. In what year did Palestinian freedom fighters carry out similar attacks against Jewish buses on the same road?'

'1978,' said the contestant, and my smile disappeared. Up in heaven I guess Grandfather Fahmi's did too. Ihab the host stared at the contestant for a few seconds before telling him he'd just blown five million lira. He recounted the real story of the Beit-Machsir fighters. When Bilahl came back I told him and he switched the set off and snapped that I needed less TV and more mosque in my life. I said nothing. I just looked levelly at my brother and leaned back on the sofa, where Rana and I had done something he never had.

27

I tried to return to my previous life, and to two things in particularDuchi and Time's Arrow. Duchi was sweet, considerate and kind, or tried to be. Time's Arrow also welcomed me back with open arms. They equipped themselves with plenty of patience and understanding and were obviously giving me as much time as I needed. Jimmy said he was sure I'd organised everything to get out of the Brussels trip. Little by little Little by little was the phrase I kept hearingat work, on Wednesdays in therapy and beside Shuli's bed was the phrase I kept hearingat work, on Wednesdays in therapy and beside Shuli's bedlittle by little.

It wasn't easy. In retrospect, it was impossible. For a start, in my previous life I used to sleep. In this one I didn't. I would wake long before dawn, exhausted by my own dreams and, hating the silence, wander through the rooms or sit in front of the television's fuzzy, comforting light. In order to pa.s.s the time I started smoking, which made me grumpy and nauseous. Duchi tried to talk to me but I pushed her away, telling her to go back to bed because she couldn't understand. Several times I called Uzi Bracha, who was always awake in the small hours, but it didn't help. After a few weeks the doctor suggested some sleeping pills called Zopiclon, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't but always left me apathetic and addled. Sleepless nights led to bad days, and vice versa. It was a vicious circle. I had a permanent headache, my nerves were frazzled, my thoughts were racing and my body was running on empty.

But now I was also...CrocAttack! Magnet of attention, symbol of resistance, vessel for other people's ideas. New forces were taking control of my life and I couldn't, or perhaps didn't want to, avoid them. Here came the offers and the pressures, the strangers and the advisers...every day I was approached by people I'd never talked to who knew what I needed, or who needed to know what I thought. Could I lend them my voice, my support, my opinion? It didn't matter to them that, in most cases, I had no opinion.

I got a call from Left and Right Left and Right on IDF Radio, a kind of sub- on IDF Radio, a kind of sub-Noah's Ark, with people from the left and the right shouting at each other. 'Eitan Enoch, what do you think about the decision to impose a curfew on the territories for the duration of the holiday season?' 'Mr Enoch, as someone who has personally experienced the intifada, could you please explain to my dear friend sitting in her air-conditioned studio in Tel Aviv the reality of terror?' 'Eitan Enoch, what do you think about a unilateral withdrawal?' 'About the planned construction of a Separation Barrier?' 'About the transfer of Jewish settlers?' 'About the two-state solution?' They called two or three times a week and I don't know why they bothered because I never had any answers. On the curfew, I said it was very hard to live like that and we should find ways to relax it. On terror attacks, I said we had to put an end to them and fight with all our might. On the wall, I said we should cause as little damage as possible. On unilateral withdrawal, I said only on the condition that security could be guaranteed. I said words which added up to sentences which grew into paragraphs but I wasn't really saying anything whatsoever. I talked like a politician and said nothing at all and it seemed to go down fine with them, because they kept calling.

After a particularly pointless conversation on Left and Right Left and Right one day, I received a phone call from Benzi Dikstein, spokesperson for the Communities Committee. I asked what the Communities Committee was. He said, 'Exactly! That's exactly our problem: no one's heard of us. We're a group of lobbyists who represent a few communities in Greater Israel opposed to the dismantling of settlements and the transfer of Jews.' one day, I received a phone call from Benzi Dikstein, spokesperson for the Communities Committee. I asked what the Communities Committee was. He said, 'Exactly! That's exactly our problem: no one's heard of us. We're a group of lobbyists who represent a few communities in Greater Israel opposed to the dismantling of settlements and the transfer of Jews.'

'Ah, settlers.'

'We prefer "inhabitants",' said Benzi. 'Eitan, as someone well known, someone who's experienced a lot and knows the reality intimately, we think you would be a tremendous a.s.set to our cause.' I burst out laughing. 'Me?' 'But you were speaking against non-voluntary transfer on IDF Radio only a couple of minutes ago. By the way, do you know where the name Enoch comes from?' 'Uh...no. I keep meaning to go to the Diaspora Museum and check it out.' 'Well, it's a corruption of Chanoch, the father of Methuselah, and they never managed to kill him either. Or not for a long time, anyway...' He gave a couple of barks that must have been some kind of laughter.

One day Shmulik Kraus called. 'Oh my G.o.d,' I yelled to Duchi, 'Shmulik Kraus!' Duchi came running and then stopped. 'It won't be him,' she said, 'it'll be that lefty.' I put my ear back to the phone. '...not Shmulik Kraus the singer, of course, I'm Shmulik Kraus from Stop the Occupation.' 'Oh,' I said.

'We really liked the things you said this morning,' he continued, slipping from single into plural, 'against this ridiculous curfew that our genius defence minister gave the residents of the West Bank for a holiday present, not the Jewish ones, of course' (I couldn't remember what I'd said, but I may possibly have called Mofaz a clown), 'and we wanted to ask whether you would like to be one of the speakers in our demonstration this Sat.u.r.day night in Rabin Square?'

I kept having conversations like this. Calls from the right, the left, the non-aligned, the Society against Violence in the Family, and one timeafter I accidentally stepped in some dog s.h.i.+t on Ibn-Givriol Street while talking on my mobile to the radio and had broken off to curse dog-owners who didn't clean up their dogs' messfrom the Society for a Clean Tel Aviv, who turned out to be pro transfer of dogs.

'Sue the National Insurance,' I was told, 'and you'll get one h.e.l.l of a pension.' A lawyer volunteered himself on a no-win, no-fee basis. A special committee of the Defence Ministrythree legal experts who debate lawsuits from alleged victims of terrorist attacksapprove or deny your compensation. My lawyer told me that my fame would guarantee compensation because I was a media darling and they wouldn't dare not pay. I went to meetings, discussed tactics, cut out articles from newspapers. They threw my claim out. My lawyer, head in his hands, said it was unbelievable how heartless they could be. 'This country's falling to bits!' he said, and blamed my fame. Then he asked for a $2,000 fee. Duchi called me an idiot, having warned me early on not to get into it. Someone else had suggested that the Hostile Actions Casualties Organisation would be more sympathetic. So I tried. They weren't.

And what else? The General Security Services came to say hi, though it took me about half an hour to figure out what they wanted. I'd been in three consecutive attacks and got away without a scratch. Wasn't that a little suspicious? Did I have, or had I ever had, Arab friends? Friends from the territories? Did I feel empathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people? Did I support their struggle? I told them that they were a national disgrace and that they should pick on the perpetrators not the victims and then burst out crying. Eventually they got off my back. Or I think so, anyway.

A private a.s.sociation helping victims of terror called One Family asked me to come and speak to other victims once a week. They thought that after Noah's Ark Noah's Ark and all the articles and the radio I might lift a few spirits. So I went a couple of times but quite a few of the audience blamed me for shamelessly exploiting terrorist attacks which had killed and injured others. I'd escaped without a scratch and was now trying to cash in and promote myself. I showed them the b.u.mp on my forehead and said I wasn't making any money: 'I wish I was!' I told the hecklers that I hadn't asked anyone to write about me. It didn't matter: I was arguing with people who'd been injured or lost their family and friends. They were looking for a target for their anger and I would do. So I removed the target from their sights, though I was criticised for that too. I was told that I'd only stopped going because the media weren't there and I was only interested in the media. One of the things I learned during those months is that sometimes you can't win. And you can't even say that you can't win, because then they say that you've a nerve to complain while others have lost limbs or are traumatised for life, so I ought to just shut up. and all the articles and the radio I might lift a few spirits. So I went a couple of times but quite a few of the audience blamed me for shamelessly exploiting terrorist attacks which had killed and injured others. I'd escaped without a scratch and was now trying to cash in and promote myself. I showed them the b.u.mp on my forehead and said I wasn't making any money: 'I wish I was!' I told the hecklers that I hadn't asked anyone to write about me. It didn't matter: I was arguing with people who'd been injured or lost their family and friends. They were looking for a target for their anger and I would do. So I removed the target from their sights, though I was criticised for that too. I was told that I'd only stopped going because the media weren't there and I was only interested in the media. One of the things I learned during those months is that sometimes you can't win. And you can't even say that you can't win, because then they say that you've a nerve to complain while others have lost limbs or are traumatised for life, so I ought to just shut up.

I tried to shut up.

But there I was on the cover of People People: 'Eitan EnochThe Escape Artist'. Maariv Maariv published a profile of me. You could see me in another newspaper answering a questionnaire about things like my favourite colour and my favourite song of the year (grey; 'Nine' by the Nomad Saddlers). In published a profile of me. You could see me in another newspaper answering a questionnaire about things like my favourite colour and my favourite song of the year (grey; 'Nine' by the Nomad Saddlers). In The City The City I read that I had been 'Spotted: the man who said "No, thanks!" to terror, Croc Attack, on his own in hip boho eatery Bar BaraBush, ordering a hamburger called "The Cannibal Is Hungry Tonight".' I read that I had been 'Spotted: the man who said "No, thanks!" to terror, Croc Attack, on his own in hip boho eatery Bar BaraBush, ordering a hamburger called "The Cannibal Is Hungry Tonight".'

Of all my new friends, the real and the fake, the temporary and the permanent, the two I liked the most were policemen. Inspector Avi 'Almaz' Yahalom headed the investigation into the attack on the Little No. 5; Zion Ferrer investigated the Cafe Europa attack. Almaz's team consisted of himself and a policewoman called Ricky. Zion's team consisted of Zion. It's not that they don't investigate terror attacks, but as soon as it becomes clear that the motive was political most of the work reverts to the General Security Services. The police work on the criminal aspects of the attack: stolen vehicles, thefts that might tie in, life or property insurance swindles, victim identifications, and occasionally they turn up things the GSS can use.

Almaz and Zion Ferrer contacted me as they did every eyewitness (the inspector who investigated Shaar Hagai contacted me too but I'm not going to waste precious seconds of our lives on him because he's a stupid arrogant fatso who thought it a good idea to put the GSS on to me) and I made an appointment to see Zion in Jerusalem on one of my Wednesdays. It was one of the first warm days after the winter, with the sun very clear and unsoftened by the haze you get in the Tel Aviv sky. Ferrer had sungla.s.ses on a cord around his neck and two sweat-circles darkening the armpits of his pale blue policeman's s.h.i.+rt. He met me at the gate to the facility, as he called it, on the Bethlehem Road and led me to a trailer among the eucalyptus trees where he showed me the CCTV footage of the Cafe Europa, in which, it turned out, I was starring. I sat in the trailer smoking a cigarette and hating it, and watched a black-and-white silent film about me. There I was, on my own, drinking coffee, my eyes staring off at some random point in s.p.a.ce, and then focused on something closer, something specific ('I think you're checking out the talent,' said Ferrer), picking my nose, wiping it with a paper napkin, looking at my watch. Then Shuli arrived and we exchanged a couple of words, changed places. Now I'm sitting with my back to the camera and Shuli is properly visible. Shuli, in the last seconds before everything changes, smiling, flirting, stroking her Ice Europa cup with her index finger. She leans forward and starts talking to me. I could remember it, almost word for word, I could read certain words formed by her lips. She'd had a thought, maybe the nicest thought she'd had in a while. And then she gave her half-sad smile and the air trembled, only this time I could see it trembling. Zion stopped the tape there, rewound, froze the frame and showed me the terrorist. His name was Mahmuzi. Freeze-framed, his image s.h.i.+vered slightly, as if in antic.i.p.ation of the blast. I felt none of the hatred I expected to. On-screen, paused, I was juddering too: horizontal spikes of pixels shooting in and out of me, as if I were shaking apart, and suddenly that was was me again and I was shaking, I was falling apart and pouring with sweat, a pulse thudding in my temples so loudly I seemed to have gone deaf. A wave of nausea broke over me and I vomited noisily. I tried to get up, to walk, but I was too weak. 'Get me out of here,' I tried to say. 'GET...OUT!' A hand tried to support me and I pa.s.sed out. They found me a bed in Hada.s.sah, but after an hour or so I got up and went to my therapy group, and not only did I start pulling myself together again at that meeting but I felt stronger than ever before. Crazily invulnerable. me again and I was shaking, I was falling apart and pouring with sweat, a pulse thudding in my temples so loudly I seemed to have gone deaf. A wave of nausea broke over me and I vomited noisily. I tried to get up, to walk, but I was too weak. 'Get me out of here,' I tried to say. 'GET...OUT!' A hand tried to support me and I pa.s.sed out. They found me a bed in Hada.s.sah, but after an hour or so I got up and went to my therapy group, and not only did I start pulling myself together again at that meeting but I felt stronger than ever before. Crazily invulnerable.

Almaz, the investigator from Tel Aviv, invited me to a meeting in a cafe in Yehuda Maccabi Street. He wasn't wearing a policeman's uniform. He didn't show films. It was a pleasant conversation. He was of Egyptian origin, lived in Bublik Street in the north of Tel Aviv, married to an Irish woman he'd met on a flight. After the small talk we discussed the attack. I told him everything I knew, about Guetta and his life in Jerusalem. I told him that Shuli and Guetta's parents had no idea what he was doing in Tel Aviv that morning, and that Shuli and I had decided to find out about it. He said that being in a certain city without telling your parents or girlfriend was not a criminal offence. Maybe, I said, but it was still interesting, and I wanted to do it so that I would have an answer for Shuli when she woke up. He said, 'Sure, go for it.' I told him about the PalmPilot and he smiled and said he could arrest me for theft.

'Come on. I'll give what's left of it back to the family. I've got the best intentions.'

'That's what everyone says,' he said. 'But the law says you don't.'

The gamblers saw me on Noah's Ark Noah's Ark too and they wanted a piece. The gamblersor 'Itzik', to give my caller his namelived in Netanya and operated an illegal casino on the second floor of a 'normal pub' (his description) in the city's industrial zone. I refused his invitation to come and drink 'whatever I fancied' on the house. Among other activities in the casino he was operating a numbers racket, betting on football matches and terrorist attacks. too and they wanted a piece. The gamblersor 'Itzik', to give my caller his namelived in Netanya and operated an illegal casino on the second floor of a 'normal pub' (his description) in the city's industrial zone. I refused his invitation to come and drink 'whatever I fancied' on the house. Among other activities in the casino he was operating a numbers racket, betting on football matches and terrorist attacks.

I have to confess here that I had myself once placed a few shekels on an Attack Pool. Bar had organised one at workwhere the next attack would be and how many would be killed. I said Jerusalem and four. It was three but I won the potthirty-five shekels. Then Bar told me he had friends in Holon who gambled professionally on attacks. I gave him a hundred-shekel note to place on Jerusalem. Two weeks later I got two hundred back. So when Itzik called me, it wasn't the idea of gambling on attacks which surprised me so much as his proposition to me.

'I want to employ you as an expert,' he explained. 'Tell me where the next attack's gonna be and I can rig the odds according to what you say.'

'What?' I was in the street. I had to stop and sit on a bench. 'Why am I an expert?'

'You think I didn't see Noah's Ark Noah's Ark? I'll give you a thousand dollars a month. Retainer. Whatever happens, attacks yes or no, whatever, you get a thousand a month. Just tell me where the next attack's going to be.'

'Tell me, Itzik, do you...'

'OK, listen. Don't tell me where the attack's going to be, just tell me where you're you're going to be.' going to be.'

'Itzik...I'm sorry. I can't. I never leave Tel Aviv anyway.'

'Two thousand dollars. Two grand a month for scratching your b.a.l.l.s. How bad can that be?'

'It's not bad at all.' It really wasn't. 'But I just happened to be in several attacks in a single week. It was just a coincidence. Doesn't mean a thing. A few weeks have pa.s.sed since then and nothing's happened anywhere I've been to.'

'There haven't been been any attacks since then,' said Itzik. any attacks since then,' said Itzik.

Invitations to movie premieres, a psychologist wanting to try out a radical new therapy, Shlomo Yarkoni's widow, the army looking for an inspirational/motivational speech, flower shops wanting me to advertise them, Shlomo Yarkoni's girlfriend, an offer to be a judge in a children's talent show...

And Humi's parents came to visit. His mother had a tale of terrible woe to tell me. Humi's brother had been killed at the age of ten by one of those exploding soft-drinks bottles they ended up having to recall. Tempo Tempo, the drink was called. The PLO should have used it. They were now divorced. Five months ago Humi's grandfather on his father's side had died of prostate cancer. Four months ago his grandmother on his mother's side succ.u.mbed to Alzheimer's. And now Humi.

She said: 'You think it's a normal day and it just isn't. It turns your life upside down. There are so many things I have to talk to him about. You, your life is nice and safe and warm and pleasant and you've got your family and friends. There are no tragedies in your life.' I mumbled something about getting on with life and she didn't like it. She said, 'You're wrong. You're so wrong. You can't get on with life. Not after losing a child. The grieving never ends.'

'Etti, stop it, stop it, please. It's not his fault.'

'I didn't say it was his fault, but how can he sit there and tell me about getting on with life?' Etti replied, tears falling now. The ex-husband rolled his eyes at me. There was a radioactive tension between the two of them. Maybe they needed it. Because when she lowered her head, a look of complete despair overtook his face too.

28

Al-Amari was becoming unbearable. The curfew was lifted and then reimposed, and every night the Israelis staged raids, shouldering their way into houses, breaking furniture and confiscating property, yelling and hitting people. They would lead all the men outside and hold them in plastic cuffs and cloth blindfolds for several hours before detaining a random few. They were pus.h.i.+ng money at anyone who might talk, and in Ramallah there were plenty of dogs who would. Twice they battered at our door in the middle of the night and marched me down to the mosque, where I was made to kneel for hours, blindfolded and in pain. Not wanting to risk getting picked up, Bilahl slept on the roof, which was a much greater risk in itself. Under these circ.u.mstances the mother of all operations wasn't getting anywhere. The money from Gaza was trickling away and I tried to help Jalahl out with little electrical jobs, but he didn't have enough work for himself. I sat at home and watched TV, but there's a limit to the number of times you can watch The Weakest Link The Weakest Link.

One day, many weeks after the last attack, water ceased to flow from the taps. The hot days had come as hot days always do; too soon. Within an hour there were no bottles in the grocery stores. I was thirsty, and being thirsty made me think about Mother, and thinking about Mother made me think of Lulu. I missed her intensely. I hadn't seen her for months. I called home and she answered. She was all right; Father was all right but sad. Everything was the same as ever. But her voice was different, I thought, more serious, the voice of a thirteen-year-old girl putting her childhood behind her. It made me frantic to see her.

'Lulu, I'm coming to visit you.'

'Really? Really really? When?'

'Right now,' I said.

When I was a kid, Grandfather Fahmi would ride from Al-Amari to visit us in Murair. It would take him an hour. Today, in a car, it takes three hours if you're lucky. Twenty kilometres as the crow flies. Where else in the world does it take longer to get from place to place as the years go by?

I chucked a few clothes into a holdall and left. The camp glowed yellow in the bright morning light. Every building was still wallpapered with posters and graffiti about Mahmuzi and Halil; huge chunks of concrete lay scattered about the streets. At an army post on the way out of the camp a soldier in sungla.s.ses waved me over. He checked my green ID card, opened the bag, took everything out, turned it inside out and then shook it. He frisked me roughly. 'Where you going?' he asked in Hebrew. 'Murair.' 'Where is it?'

I pointed in roughly the right direction. 'Don't point, say where it is.' I didn't know what to say. 'It's over there, beyond Ramallah.' I had to explain why I was travelling. He demanded I show him a Tasrich Tasricha permit to move freely around the West Bankand I showed him the permit Jalahl had managed to get hold of from the electricity company in Ramallah. Then I got detailed instructions, what I could do and what I couldn't. I nodded. I turned left towards Ramallah and walked along the main road that cuts through the city north to Nablus, until the checkpoint was out of sight. Then I stopped and waited until I managed to get a lift. Five minutes later we were at the Beitin checkpoint.

'It'll be an hour at least,' said the driver. I got out of the car and strolled towards the pedestrian gate. A soldier blocked my way.

'What do you think you're doing? Get back in your car.'

'I don't have a car.'

'You lying to me? Aren't you ashamed? I just saw you get out of that car there.' I could tell he enjoyed peering down at me through his sungla.s.ses. 'You think I'm an idiot?'

'It's not my car, I was. .h.i.tching a lift.'

'Do you think I'm an idiot?'

'No, no,' I said. He frisked me and went through my bag and let me past to the queue for the pedestrian gate. A friend of my aunt's was there, carrying two chickens in a basket. I talked to her as we stood in line, and to an elegantly dressed bearded guy who turned out to be a good friend of Bilahl's from the Al-Birah mosque. After we'd waited for almost an hour, the pedestrian gate was closed down. 'That's the instruction from command headquarters,' a soldier told us, and you could see from his face that he hadn't a clue why they'd closed it either. Only cars with special permits were being allowed through.

I went back to the queue of the cars and saw that the guy who'd given me a lift had given up and turned back. So I tried offering drivers money to let me go with them. One was apprehensive, a second looked suspiciously at my holdall, a third asked me what we would tell the soldiers. I showed him my permit: 'We'll say we work together.' His name was Muhamed Mahmoud Zakat, on his way to Nablus to buy supplies for his stationery shop.

I sat on a rock beside Zakat's rusty sky-blue Subaru and called Bilahl, who wasn't happy. He wanted to work. But it had been weeks, and it was clear we weren't going to be doing anything for a while. 'Come on. How long is it since you you saw Lulu?' 'How long are you going to be?' he asked, as if I were headed to the other side of Earth. At this rate I was going to be six months. 'A day or two, maybe longer. Oh, man, these soldiers. They're driving me crazy already, and we're not even past Beitin.' saw Lulu?' 'How long are you going to be?' he asked, as if I were headed to the other side of Earth. At this rate I was going to be six months. 'A day or two, maybe longer. Oh, man, these soldiers. They're driving me crazy already, and we're not even past Beitin.'

I keyed in Rana's number but didn't dial it. I wasn't sure I had the right to call her. In front of us were cars, chickens, people milling around or sitting on luggage. Behind us the same. You could hardly say the queue was moving at all. Zakat was chain-smoking behind the wheel. He offered me one, which I refused.

'They won't let you through,' he said.

'Why not?'

'Well, when was the last time they did something you wanted them to?'

'Good question,' I said, and pressed Dial. She didn't pick up.

'Oh, you bad boy, Fahmi...what's going on with you down there? Who are you thinking about? Here now...'

Svet? I'm so hot...

If I'm dreaming, this dream is never-ending.

An ant zigzagged between my feet towards the checkpoint: but would they let it through without interrogating it? When it overtakes the Subaru, I decided, I'll call again. The ant was the fastest thing on the road, and it was soon forging ahead of the Subaru.